


not the evening sky

by oryx



Category: Denji Sentai Megaranger
Genre: F/F, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 11:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12387132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: An invitation to a group date leads Chisato to a revelation.





	not the evening sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SunshineMoon (CaptainSpace)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSpace/gifts).



Out of all the information in Miku’s latest long, rambling e-mail, the anecdotes and factoids she’s just learned and descriptions of the strange foreign snack foods she’s eaten, Chisato finds herself fixated on the very last line.  
   
 _p.s. why havent you been sending me any pics lately?? i miss seeing them_  
   
She stares at those words for a solid minute. Why haven’t I, she wonders, and the answer seems obvious: Because there aren’t any pictures to send. Because college is more draining than she ever thought it would be and she doesn’t have the energy, most days, to even think about picking up the camera.  
   
It’s true, that answer, and yet, when she types it into her reply, something about it feels inexplicably like a lie.  
   
  
   
  
   
“Weird to think you all won’t be around anymore,” Kenta says, arms folded behind his head.  
   
Shun glances at him, sidelong and bemused. “What, did you really think everyone was just going to stick around forever?”  
   
“Wha – of course not,” Kenta mutters, glaring in return. “That doesn’t make it not weird, though.”  
   
Privately, Chisato has to agree. It was inevitable, she supposes, after the things they’ve seen, the things they’ve done. When you’ve looked down and watched the entire Earth turning below you, it’s hard to return to same old places and faces and daily routines. But it doesn’t change the fact that it will feel hollow here without them. She imagines it like a pair of scissors, cutting out the shapes of them and leaving only outlines where they used to be.  
   
“The other side of the world isn’t another planet, you know,” Koichiro says, nodding sagely. “And in this new age of global communication technology, there is nothing holding us back f – ”  
   
“Why d’you have to make everything sound so dull?” Miku cuts him off, rolling her eyes. “Chisatoooo,” she calls. “Are you almost done or what?”  
   
“Yeah, yeah, just give me a second.” She finishes fixing the tripod’s legs and then reaches for the camera, pushing the timer button and setting it for exactly a minute from now. “Alright. If any of you ruin this picture I’ll end your life, you got that?”  
   
“Why’re you looking at me?” Kenta asks, pressing a hand to his heart in mock offense.  
   
“I wonder,” she laughs as she jogs over to join them.  
   
They get in position, Shun leaning on Kenta’s shoulder, Koichiro standing behind her and Miku to her immediate right. Miku’s arm slips around her waist and tugs her closer, her palm warm even through the fabric of Chisato’s blouse.  
   
“You’re not gonna miss me too much when I’m gone, right?” Miku says, teasing, her voice low enough that the boys can’t hear, and Chisato turns her head to look at her, at the amusement glittering in her eyes, and feels something twist painfully inside her.  
   
“That’s – ” she begins to say, and falters, and doesn’t even notice the beeping of the camera until the timer has gone off with her still staring at Miku’s face.  
   
  
   
  
   
“You need to get out more,” Keiko tells her, and Chisato frowns.  
   
“I _do_ get out.”  
   
Keiko levels her with an exasperated look from where she’s lying on top of her bedspread, flipping through the latest issue of Boon.  
   
“With the other girls from the computer science department, yeah. And with that goofy guy who I know you’re just friends with. I mean _out_ out. On _dates_.” She draws herself up so that she’s sitting cross-legged; leans forward with a conspiratorial gleam in her eyes. “Nacchan’s setting up a goukon this weekend. With some guys who’re all business majors, I think? I dunno, but she swore up and down they were catches.”  
   
Chisato taps her pen against the textbook page. Her list of typical excuses to get out of these sorts of things seems to have suddenly gone blank, her thoughts grasping at thin air, and with each second she hesitates she can feel Keiko’s eyes on her.  
   
“Yeah, alright,” she concedes with a sigh, and Keiko gives her a pleased look.  
   
“I’ve made this my mission, Chisato. I’ll find you a boyfriend no matter what. If anything can clear up this whole,” here she makes a vague, fluttery gesture, “ _weird mood_ you’ve been in, it’s that.” She winks. “Trust me, I’m a love expert.”  
   
Chisato waits until she’s not looking to massage her temples tiredly.  
   
  
   
  
   
The trip home is quiet, that day. They say their somewhat awkward goodbyes to the boys at the crossroads by the train station, and from thereon it’s just the two of them, walking side-by-side along the path overlooking the river. Both of them keep subconsciously touching the Digitaizers on their wrists, the weight of it unfamiliar against their skin.  
   
“Chisato,” Miku says, and Chisato glances over to find her stopped in the middle of the path. The afternoon is getting late, and her shadow stretches long across the ground. She’s worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, grip white-knuckled around the handle of her schoolbag. “Aren’t you scared at all?”  
   
“…I don’t know,” Chisato says, after a moment of contemplation. “I’m not sure what to think.”  
   
Miku nods ever so slightly, seeming to accept that answer, at least for now. “It’s just,” she says. “I’ve never felt anything like that before. I was so strong, and. And it’s like I suddenly knew things that I don’t normally know. How things work. It’s like I could see it.  
   
“You’re smart, so it probably wasn’t so strange for you, right? But for me, I – ” She breaks off, averting her eyes and staring down at her feet. “It’s like a whole other world.”  
   
Silence falls between them. The shouts of elementary schoolers playing soccer by the riverside and cars rushing past along the bridge meld together in a quiet background hum.  
   
“But it’s not all bad, is it?” Chisato says, overly cheery even to her own ears. “It’s exciting, too. We could be heroes, Miku. We already kind of are, in a way.” She seems to brighten a bit at those words, and Chisato soldiers on: “Maybe we should take a picture to celebrate. Then it’ll really feel like an occasion, you know?” She opens up her bag, pulling out her old Polaroid camera that she’s been using lately while her Nikon is being repaired.  
   
“C’mon,” she says, moving closer and leaning in so that their shoulders are brushing as she holds up the camera. Miku’s hair trails soft against her cheek as she closes the distance even more. “Three, two, one, and – cheese!”  
   
They both lift their Digitaizers into frame right before the shutter goes off.  
   
“Seriously?” Chisato says as they watch the photo develop. It seems they both had the same idea at the very last second, as both of them are pulling idiotic faces – Miku’s tongue sticking out and her gaze half-lidded, Chisato’s cheeks puffed up and her eyes alarmingly wide.  
   
Miku snatches the photo out of her hand with a snort of laughter. “What is this expression? You look… like an absolute dumbass.”  
   
“What, as if you don’t?”  
   
“This one’s going up on my desk for sure.” Miku’s grinning as she starts off down the path again, holding the photo up to the light, and Chisato stares after her for a moment with a feeling of staggering relief pooling warm in her stomach, the old Polaroid camera still held loosely in her hands.  
   
  
   
  
   
“Sorry if this is rude of me to say, but… You kind of look like you’d rather not be here.”  
   
Chisato turns to look at the person across the table, who is smiling at her in a way that speaks of empathy. The two of them have ended up together, somehow, sitting at one end while the rest of the group clusters around the other. What did he say his name was? Takeru, she thinks, that sounds about right. He’s got a pleasant, amiable sort of face. The way his hair is slicked back neatly reminds her a bit of Koichiro.  
   
“I’m not much for this sort of thing,” Chisato says, and takes a sip of her beer. “I’m actually not looking for a relationship right now. I kind of got dragged along, you know?”  
   
Takeru laughs a bit at that. “Oh, I get it. Same here.” A pause, in which he seems to be weighing his options, a hint of nervousness in the way his hand is clenched around his glass. “To tell you the truth, I actually already have someone. It’s just… something I’m keeping private, for the most part.”  
   
“Really?” Chisato blinks. “Why’s that? Do your parents not approve of them?”  
   
This time when he smiles there is a hint of sad wistfulness to it. “Something like that.”  
   
Chisato swallows hard, the mouthful of beer suddenly, inexplicably bitter on her tongue.  
   
“Do you,” she starts, and hesitates for a second before continuing, “want to tell me about them?”  
   
Takeru’s eyes are wide as he stares at her. “You mean it?” he says, and when she nods his entire face lights up, as if she’d just handed him the perfect gift. “Wow, yeah, I. I never really get a chance to talk about them, y’know?”  
   
He takes a small sip of his drink and sets the glass down with a pensive set to his features.  
   
“They’re. They’re really special. I’ve only known them for a few years, but. It feels like we’ve always been together.” He laughs; palms the back of his neck. “Maybe that’s cliché. I don’t know. They just… understand me in a way that nobody else does. I don’t ever have to be someone I’m not with them. If I did they’d see right through it anyhow. They’re someone… without any pretenses.”  
   
Chisato listens to him talk with an odd sort of heaviness weighing on her, as if something were pressing down on her shoulders. And yet beneath it also is a restless feeling, her fingers digging into her thigh beneath the table. “What’s their name?” she hears herself ask, and Takeru freezes.  
   
“It’s…” His eyes dart to the other end of the table and then back to meet hers. “His name is Jin.”  
   
Ah, Chisato thinks. She nods slowly. “I’d like to meet him sometime,” she says, and smiles, and for a split second Takeru looks as if he might cry, before he blinks hurriedly and mutters “thanks” and downs the rest of his glass in a single swig.  
   
After, she doesn’t go back to the dorms. She trudges in the opposite direction across campus to the computer science building, where the janitor – who is used to seeing her here at odd hours – lets her in with a shake of his head.  
   
“Working late again, Jougasaki-kun?”  
   
“You know me,” she says airily.  
   
As expected, her usual lab computer is still turned on, and she presses the power button on the monitor, hardly even giving it time to flicker to life before opening up her e-mail. There’s a reply from Yusaku in their latest chain of “sending each other the strangest things they can find on the internet in a bizarre kind of one-upmanship,” but that can wait until tomorrow. For now, she composes a new message, Miku’s e-mail address autofilling as soon as she types the first letter.  
   
 _You asked me why I haven’t sent you any photos,_ she writes. _And I gave you a reason, but it wasn’t the whole truth. There aren’t any photos to send because every time I pick up the camera the pictures come out wrong. It just doesn’t feel right when you’re not here._  
   
 _Nothing does._  
   
  
   
  
   
There’s a girl with pigtails standing by the photo display when she exits the darkroom. She turns and smiles upon hearing the door close, hands clasped behind her back, and Chisato knows her face – from class 2-C, she thinks, one of those girls that Chisato can’t help but follow with her eyes whenever she sees them in the halls. So bright and bubbly and cute that she just demands attention. As if there were a spotlight shining down on her.  
   
“Did you take these?” she asks, pointing over her shoulder at the display, and when Chisato nods her smile widens. “Really? All of them, by yourself?”  
   
Chisato shrugs, nonchalant. “There hasn’t been an actual photography club at this school in ages, but since we’ve still got this room… I convinced them to let me use it as much as I want.” She grins a bit in return. “As long as I help out the school newspaper once in a while.”  
   
The girl makes a quiet, impressed sort of sound, her mouth in the shape of an ‘o’. “So this is basically… like a personal business?” she says, and before Chisato can interject she points to one of the pictures in the display – of a second year boy holding up the gold medal he’d won at the track meet. “So you could sell me a copy of this, if I wanted one?”  
   
Chisato can feel her brow furrow. “I mean, I probably still have the negatives, but. Why would you want it?”  
   
“It’s not for me,” the girl says, as if it should be obvious. “It’s for a friend of mine. She’s got a crush on him, and I promised her I’d get a pic of him somehow.” She claps her hands together. “C’mon, please.”  
   
“…For that reason? I don’t think so,” Chisato says, and watches with amusement as the girl pouts.  
   
“Stingy,” she mutters. She turns back to the photoboard and stares up at it with a thoughtful hum. “These are really good, though. Y’know? You could be like… a professional photographer, I think. But I’m sure everyone’s always telling you that.”  
   
Chisato blinks. No one has ever told her that, actually, and she stands there with an odd, tense feeling in her chest, like a spring that’s been wound too tight. It’s not as if her parents are unsupportive. But in their minds photography is just a hobby – something to look nice on her college applications. Something she’ll inevitably put aside someday.  
   
“What’s your name?” she asks.  
   
“Hm? Oh, I’m Imamura. Imamura Miku.” The girl glances over her shoulder and flashes a peace sign, her eyes brightening. “You can call me Micchan if you want. That’s a new nickname I’m trying out. You’ve gotta rebrand yourself when you start high school, right? To get that full experience of rose-colored youth.”  
   
Imamura is looking at her expectantly, and Chisato can feel a real, genuine laugh threatening in the back of her throat.  
   
(That’s how it starts.)  
   
  
   
  
   
“You sure you’re not just missing a tag in there somewhere?” Ukai asks.  
   
Chisato arches an eyebrow as she leans back to look at her. “You don’t think I would’ve checked already? There’s no basic errors in the code at the very least. It has to be a deeper level issue – ”  
   
The sound of someone shouting “JOUGASAKI CHISATO-SAN” makes her jump in her seat, her knee banging the underside of the desk, design documents spilling from her hands and cascading to the floor. Her head snaps up to stare at the window through which the muffled shout just came, and Ukai’s eyes are just as wide as hers feel.  
   
“What in the world,” she whispers, and picks her way over through the rows of computers and tangled wires to peer down into the courtyard below.  
   
Miku is beaming up at her from beneath the brim of a sun hat. She waves excitedly when Chisato appears at the window, and Chisato waves back, more a reflex than anything, before the reality hits her like a sharp slap and her hand stills mid-motion. (Miku has two suitcases by her feet, like she came here straight from the airport. She’s wearing that red sundress, the one Chisato helped her picked out the week before she left, the one she’d held up and said “oh yeah, this one is just as cute as you” and laughed – ) She throws the window open with her heart in her throat and leans out.  
   
“What are you doing here?” she yells down.  
   
Miku cups her hands around her mouth. “I got your e-mail,” she calls back. “And that’s how I feel, too!”  
   
Chisato takes a sharp breath, her mouth gone dry. “That’s – meet me downstairs, will you?”  
   
She ends up nearly careening into a group of biology students on her way down, lifting a hand in contrition as she sidesteps around them. She’s barely reached the bottom of the steps before someone’s hand is closing around her wrist and tugging her into a room full of spare projectors. Miku grins conspiratorially as she slides the door shut behind them, and in a split second she is surging forward to wrap her arms around Chisato’s waist, holding on tight as she rests her forehead against her shoulder. Chisato blinks. For a moment she almost doesn’t dare breathe, until she finally lifts a hand to the nape of Miku’s neck, her other hand pressed against her back.  
   
“What… about your volunteer work?” she asks.  
   
Miku is silent for a time.  
   
“I thought I’d like being overseas,” she says, voice muffled against Chisato’s shoulder. “I tried to sound happy, in my e-mails. But. I missed everything.” She pulls back a bit, so that Chisato can see the awkward hopefulness in her expression. “I missed you.”  
   
“Weren’t you the one who told me not to miss _you_ too much?” Chisato says, laughing despite the tightness in her throat, and when she leans in haltingly to kiss her she can feel her smile against her lips.  
   
She thinks, distantly, that this would make a good photograph.


End file.
